June 25, 2009 – Thursday, Week 12
Genesis 16: 1-12; 15-16 / Psalm 106 / Matthew 7:21-29
Given our sensibilities about right and wrong, there is probably a lot about the first reading that we find blatantly offensive. We have to approach the story by appreciating that this is a most primitive period in the history of salvation. God has called a people to himself; but, for the most part, they are much like the pagan tribes around them. They believe that there are no gods to compare with theirs, but even a strict monotheism is still in the making. Morals are pretty much what the ruling patriarch decides. Divine favor and rewards revolve around this life; there is little talk about an afterlife. Now, add to this that we can only perceive the divine will (at that time) through the prism of their eyes. They were children just making the first steps to real faith.
Sarai feels ashamed about being barren and has apparently despaired of having a son. She does something that we as Christians find hard to stomach. She gives Abram her Egyptian maidservant, literally a slave, for the sole purpose of impregnating her and claiming her child. After Hagar gets pregnant, Sarai interprets the poor woman’s joy as incrimination against her. She abuses the pregnant woman so badly that she tries to run away. God stops her along the way and tells her to go back and to take the abuse, but to take solace from the fact that she is going to have one badass of a son. Sarai berates her husband for the situation she orchestrated. The whole business is not unlike a seamy soap opera. One could almost envision the whole cast of characters on one of those daytime tell-all television programs. Add to this what comes next, Sarai getting pregnant and having her own son and one might imagine Montel offering a DNA test to be shared on the next show. No doubt there would be a cat-fight between the ladies, too.
All this hardly sounds respectable or how providence should proceed. It is messy and scandalous. But why should the beginning of the story be any different from the ending. The world Jesus entered was also filled with obscenity and oppression. Such is the reality of the human lot. The real miracle is that God should lower himself so much to care about us at all. The eventual pregnancy of Sarai was highly improbable. In the Gospels, the pregnancy of Elizabeth was also unlikely. But, as we see especially in the Virgin Mary, God can make the impossible possible. As the Psalm relates, “Who can tell the mighty deeds of the LORD, or proclaim his praises?”
Abram, later renamed Abraham, is the ancient father of faith. Jesus tells us that genuine faith must be more than either mouth service or deeds to be seen by others. He says, “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.” Notice that he gives voice to the lost souls. They call him Lord and even admit to performing prophesy, exorcism and other “mighty deeds”. It may be that God did manifest his power through them. The Church tells us that even a priest in mortal sin can absolve the sins of others and offer the sacrifice of the Mass, even if he is personally guilty of sacrilege in doing so. God takes care of his people, even with the most unworthy of instruments. Truly obeying God means to surrender ourselves to him. Our words and actions should emerge from a living faith or internal disposition of obedience and humility. God knows who we really are, past the fancy rhetoric, sensational works and possible self-deception. Our Lord knows who we are under the skin. If we belong to him, we will weather all the storms of life and find ourselves safely with him when our pilgrimage is over.
